The Behavioral And ERP Evidence Of Test Enhancing The Performance Of Learning And Memory Retention

Most previous studies of retrieval practice(or practice testing) have found effects on long-term memory retention, but they mostly limited on the free recall test or cued recall test, not showed how the advantages operate concretely. Therefore, the first of the current experiment compared the “remember and know” performance after participants testing or restudying materials.Besides, although several theoretical explanations have tried to elucidate the underlying cognitive mechanisms of this effect, few studies have used event related potentials(ERPs) to explore this issue. The second experiment of the present study investigated the retrieval response after testing or restudying items via ERPs.Specially, Exp 1 required participants to learn Swahili-Chinese word-pairs through repeated restudying or repeated testing in an initial study session, and then followed by a “remember-know” memory retrieval task conducted on paper-pencil test immediately or seven days later. Exp 2 were similar to the exp 1 on the initial study session, after that participants were required to made “old/new” judgment when encountered with the test word on the immediate recognition test.The behavioral results of exp 1 showed that the proportion of “remember” responses in the testing condition was higher than in the restudying condition on a delayed final test. The results of exp2 showed that participants can faster and more correctly to retrieve the old items in the testing condition than in the restudying condition. Correspondingly, when we examined the ERP differences between two conditions, a smaller N400, followed by larger amplitude of late positive component were generated by the restudying condition than those generated by the testing condition on an immediate final test.Overall, these results may suggest that interpolating memory tests in learning is an effective learning strategy, in which learners achieve better long-term retention and spend less mental resources to retrieve target on an immediate final test. The current results provided more evidence for the hypothesis of the elaboration and the search set constraining theoretical framework. The present study yield a deeper insight into the cognitive mechanism of practice testing via ERPs, and showed that the late positive component might be a useful index for studying retrieval practice.